More Than Baseball

With the opening weekend behind us and the disappointing results of a 1-3 start, any Giants fan right now is saying two things. 1. “who cares, there is 159 games left and multiple series with the Dodgers to get back at them. OR 2. “o no…our pitching is affected by the short turnaround from last years championship to now / we are now a team who has serious defense problems (huffy in right is not going to work out in my opinion).
But this situation with a fellow Giants fan, now in the hospital fighting for his own life because a couple Dodger fans beat and kicked him senseless to the point he had to be put into a medical induced coma to save his life, is the bigger story in my opinion. Whenever I argued to my east coast friends that the Dodger vs Giants rivalry was bigger than Sox vs Yanks, I ALWAYS included that every series between these two teams included incidents of stabbings, beatings, fights etc etc (A Giant’s fan was stabbed last year at Chavez Ravine). Compared to the obviously massive and epic rivalry between the AL East teams, rarely including these violent incidents. When looking back on how I explained our rivalry to my east coast friends, I feel a bit of shame for emphasizing how physical things got between fans. A rivalry in my opinion is the best thing that sports have to offer, having a team to hate and loathe, and the things you learn while playing in those rivalries (wins or losses), as well as the major sport teams that have rivalries that you follow. But this weekend’s incident has opened my mind in some ways. I won’t stop saying Beat LA, or F the Dodgers, or etc etc but all fans involved in this ongoing rivalry need to learn from this weekend. We need to respect this rivalry and what it represents, from the Bay to Manhattan this rivalry has been going on longer than any other MLB/Major USA sport league and that is something we all (Dodger & Giant) fans included need to respect and uphold. If we went back in time (glory years in NYC) and talked to Mays, Mcovey, Marishal, Jackie Robinson, Drysdale, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese and said that fans are now putting each other in comas they would be utterly appalled.
– “The Shot Heard Round the World”

This rivalry that we have in California in my opinion is sacred, and when fans act this way it spits on everything that we hold dear. I hope I am not coming off as biased with this statement, but the facts tell the tale, young latino Dodger fans seem to always be the culprit in these situations. I can remember vividly as a twelve-year-old visiting Chavez Ravine with my father and being persecuted to unbelievable acts by Dodger fans that just so happened fit the exact profile of the culprits in this beating. Whenever the Dodgers come to SF, I love to go to the bleacher seats to see the verbal/ possible physical altercations that may occur, and in each case a young latino Dodger fan is involved. I don’t want to come off racist at all, but over the years when it comes to the serious life threatening/ serious fights, this demographic is always included. Look it up if you don’t believe me / think I am being a bigot. I know for a fact that this would have never happened in San Francisco or what happened last year when a fan was stabbed in LA. So wake up Dodger fans, stop running this great rivalry we have with each other with these acts of violence. We aren’t stabbing fans in parking lots or beating your fans to the point of having to be put into comas. Grow up, respect this thing that we both have, the greatest rivalry in baseball and in all of sports.
don

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